| OCR Text |
Show Leisure a Microbe-Bed From Which Come Naturally Disgraceful Conditions By GEORGE W. ALGER, in Atlantic Monthly. Why is it that crime in America is wholly out of proportion to crime in other civilized countries? Why do we have a record which cannot be equaled even in the most war-wrecked country of Europe? Those who attribute all these blots on our national escutcheon to defects in our criminal crim-inal law and our courts and the shortcomings of our police are shortsighted short-sighted indeed. Why axe we the greatest consumers of habit-forming drugs ? Why are our insanity records appalling and getting worse ? Of course, we cannot ascribe all these disgraceful conditions to any single cause, but one cause that is among the most fundamental we have scarcely considered at all. We have never regarded leisure as the microbe-bed microbe-bed from which these diseases come naturally and almost inevitably. As industry grows less interesting to its participants and creates continuously less joy in work, we have, as a result, a not inconsiderable class of our young people seeking a more exciting and hazardous substitute substi-tute for a life of such toil. A dull background of uninteresting work, moreover, produces or tends to produce, in the leisure of those who work, reactions to make a balance by excitement, thrill, danger, dope and lawlessness. |
